LONDON and LONDONERS in the EIGHTEEN-FIFTIES AND SIXTIES
By
ALFRED ROSLING BENNETT
Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers; Member and Past Vice-President of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers; Member of the Newcomen Society

T.FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON : ADELPHI TERRACE

CHAPTER I - EARLY DAYS - Islington - City Road - Cholera - Measles and Weasels - New River - Pranks - London Bridge - The Pool - Crimean War - P.s. Prince - H.M.S. Tiger.

CHAPTER II - SOUTHWARD HO! - Camberwell - New house - Severe frost - Maidens at the well - First railway Journey - Accidents.

CHAPTER III - STREET TYPES OF THE 1850s - Policemen - Experiences humorous and tragic - Postmen - Old clo' man - Skin merchant - "Skin 'em alive oh!" - Milkmen - Butchers' boys - Volunteers - Street banter.

CHAPTER IV - OLD-TIME STREET SCENES - Retailing beer to houses - Can-boys - Workmen and beer - Dustmen - Muffin-man - Brewers draymen - Austrian General and Barclay and Perkins - Sweeps - Water-carts and pumps - Popularity of street trading - Water-cress girls - Lavender sellers - Cats'-meat man - Gipsies - Thimble-rig -Three-card trick - Purse trick - Street roulette - Impromptu rhymer.

CHAPTER V - THE DIORAMA OF THE STREET - Chair-menders - "Ornaments for your fire-stoves!" - Fly-catchers - Draught-bags - Italian images - Sham sailors - Groundsel  -Baked chestnuts and potatoes - Night refreshments - Fruit and vegetable hawkers - Strawberries in pottles - Street stalls - Orange girls - Hand-bills - Beggars with paintings - Cheap Jacks - Preachers - Waits - Workmen's paper caps - Soldiers - Sailors - Pensioners - Beadles - Lamplighters - Crossing sweepers - Shoeblacks - Undertakers.

CHAPTER VI - STREET ENTERTAINERS - Raree-show - Punch and Judy - Dancing puppets - Acrobats - Mu1tiplex musician - Bagpipers - Hurdy-gurdy and white mice - Organ-grjnders -  German bands - Ballad singers - Victorian and modern music - Happy families - Glass-blowers - Bell-ringers - Jack-in-the-Green - Guy Fawkes  - Grottoes - Marrow-bones and cleavers.

CHAPTER VII - STREET PASSENGERS - COSTUMES AND CUSTOMS - Ladies and crinoline - Riding habits - Complexions - Maiden simplicity - Little girls - Men's whiskers and attire - Night-caps - Bed curtains -  Little boys - Top hats - Few women in City - Office equipment in 1850s - Wafers - Seals - Quills.

CHAPTER VIII - STILL ON THE QUEEN'S HIGHWAY - Tea-shops - Aerated bread - Chop and coffee-houses - Taverns - Railways and refreshments - Lake's - Lord Mayor's Show - Gog and Magog - Show Programmes - Mayors and Reeves -  Omnibuses - Fires - Manual engines - Fire escapes - Steam fire engines - Tooley Street blaze - Thames on fire - Braithwaite and Ericsson - Locomotive Novelty  - Turret ship Monitor - Hot-air ship - Motorcar radiator.

CHAPTER IX - PEARLS AND DIVERS MATTERS - FIRST TREMOR OF THE WORLD-QUAKE - Grand Surrey Canal - Severe winter - Learning to row - Diving for pearls in London - Disastrous fishing expedition - Road-making - Tollbars - Road steamers-.Bricklayers' Arms Station - Crown Prince Frederick - Act I of Armageddon -Railways and taverns.

CHAPTER X - BUILDINGS, BEER, AND BEARS' GREASE - Buildings - Beer - English v. French - Brewers - " Entires " - Convinced M.P.- Shop and tavern signs - London Bridge railway termini - Southwark Town Hall - Crimean plum-puddings -Wellington Clock Tower - New London Bridge as Rennie left it - Skating on London Bridge - Glengall Grove bridge - A puzzle for future antiquaries - Moses and Sons - Harper Twelvetrees - Boars' grease and bears - Antimacassars - Hair-brushing by machinery.

CHAPTER XI - BIG BEN BOOMS - DONATI LOOMS - Big Ben - Old and New Houses of Parliament - Donati's comet - Consternation - Signs and portents - 1858 extraordinary astronomical year - A clever coast-guardsman - B.C. 637 - A.D. 4353 - Fine summer - Pictures of comet.

CHAPTER XII - FATHER THAMES - River Thames - Steamers above and below bridge - Margate, Ramsgate, Ipswich, and Continental steamers - Tug-boats - A great highway - Call-boys - Let-down funnels - Surrey Side Pier - Gravesend and Rosherville - Uniforms - Steering - Decadence of steamer traffic.

CHAPTER XIII - THE BIGGEST SHIP SINCE THE ARK - First river trips - Great Eastern in 1857 and 1886 - Echoes in Muscat - At Bombay - Breaking up - Gruesome discovery - Performances as steamer - Voyage to New York - Man going to be hanged taken to see her - Trip to the Chesapeake - Visited by President and slaves - Unlucky career - Before her time.

CHAPTER XIV - BRIDGES - GARDENS - CHURCHES - PARSONS - Hungerford Bridge - Market and Pier - Lambeth Bridge - Battersea Timber Bridge - Old Westminster Bridge - Old Blackfriars Bridge - Cannon Street Bridge - Rosherville Gardens - North Woolwich Gardens - Cremorne and Royal Surrey Gardens - Rev. C. H. Spurgeon - St. George's, Camberwell - Churchwardens' staves - Pulpits, clerk and beadle - Boys and girls - Problems and peppermint -The Rev. Samuel Smith.

CHAPTER XV - BELGIAN CIVIC GUARDS - WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH - LORD PALMERSTON - English Volunteers in Belgium - Festivities - Dining with the King - Field of Waterloo - "Abas le Roi!" - Luminosity in North Sea - Belgian Gardes Civiques in England - Troop-ship Serapis - Thames steamers - La Vivandiêre - Turtle famine at Guildhall - No lunch at Wimbledon - Dinner with the Queen - Merriment at Crystal Palace - All forgotten in 1914 - Whitebait at Greenwich - Lord Palmerston and Ministry in 1861 - German opinion of "Pam" - Trimmings and turtles.

CHAPTER XVI - THE HISTORIAN HIMSELF BECOMES HISTORY - OF VARIOUS MATTERS, REGAL TO RAGGED - Lord Macaulay - Model locomotive - Opening of Parliament - "Stop thief!" - St. James's Park - Balloons - Mouldy coppers  -Vulgar speech - Other errors - Swear words - Affected speech - Names-Manners - Rough boys - Effects of pugilism not all bad - Baiting eccentrics - Boys and cats.

CHAPTER XVII - TWO GREAT INVENTIONS-EVERYDAY THINGS THAT WERE - Lucifers - Postage-stamps - Letters - Script - Benevolence - Uncut newspapers - Carpet-bags - Willow pattern china - Dutch clocks - Roasting jacks - Baths.

CHAPTER XVIII - SIXPENNY TELEGRAMS SIXTY YEARS AGO - THE BICYCLE'S ANCESTORS - Druggists - Shutters - Food - Sixpenny telegrams - Smallpox - Lamps  - Candles - Pantechnicons - Velocipedes - Insurance signs - Slaughterhouses - Toys and games - Skelt's sheets - Toy theatres - Magic lanterns.

CHAPTER XIX -  1852-7 - LIFE'S KALEIDOSCOPE - FRANKLIN - INDIAN MUTINY - Home life - Illustrated journals - A loving mentor - Chess - Great Duke - Crimean War - A Turkish Fenian - German champion for England - Dr. Palmer - George Herring - Sir John Franklin - Arctic and Antarctic - An American courtesy - Indian Mutiny - Day of humiliation - Spurgeon at Crystal Palace - Captain Lukis.

CHAPTER XX - 1857 - A GOOD MAN GETS HIS CHANCE - LONDON'S ODOURS - Burning of s.s. Sarah Sands - Captain Castle - P.s. Nyanza - At Sunderland - Cleopatra's Needle - Atlantic cable, first attempt - Chinese and Persian Wars - General Tom Thumb - London, S. - Insanitary London - Foulness of Thames and Serpentine - Chloride of Lime.

CHAPTER XXI - 1858 - THE PANTOMIME JOGS ON - INVADING THE OCEAN BED - Don Quizote - Astley's - St. James's Theatre - Prestidigitation - Dinner at Leicester Square - Orsini - Perim - Queen at Cherbourg - First Atlantic cable laid - Whales, American barque and Irish steamer - Disaster and disappointment - Jersey-Coutances cable.

CHAPTER XXII - 1858-9 - CRYSTAL PALACE - SPAIN POISES THE JAVELIN - Crystal Palace - History - Sir Joseph Paxton - Fountains - Balloons -  Antediluvians - Railways to - When the Crystal Palace owned a railway - Crystal Palace Station - Divers attractions - Court of Lions - Protest from the Moorish Ambassador - Refreshments - Photographs - Flying machines - Later visits - Dangerous bridge - Colonel Burnaby - Shadow Show - Perfect Cure - Green's Balloon - Pepper's Ghost - Handel Festival - Concerts - Express trains to Palace - Declaration of war by Spain - Bad business - Royal Charter.

CHAPTER XXIII - 1860 - GLADIATORS, HA' PENCE, MURDERS, WRECKS, AND TRAMS - Sayers and Heenan  -One arm versus No eyes - National enthusiasm - Heenan in railway accident - Marries a poetess - Heenan's backers presented at Court - New bronze coinage - Old coppers - Victoria Station - Approach through glass tunnel - Constance Kent - Repercussion of Grace Darling - First street tramways - George Francis Train - Eccentric telegram.

CHAPTER XXIV - 1860 - LONGITUDE 0º 0' 0" - Family removal - Greenwich in 1860 - River path to Woolwich - Derelict steamers - Angerstein's Wharf - A good Fairy - Yarn of a rope - Marooned off Blackwall - Churchwardens.

CHAPTER XXV - 1861 - GREENWICH SIXTY YEARS SINCE - A straight road - Southern outfall sewer - Live British workmen - Winding and pumping engines - New Cross Road - Greenwich Hospital and its pensioners - Collegemen's chapel - Characteristic hymns - Hospital wards - Trafalgar model - Painted Hall - Changes in Hospital - Out pensions - Deplorable results - Empty Hospital - Removal of the Dreadnought.

CHAPTER XXVI - 1861 (continued) - SCULL AND OAR - Regattas - George Everson - Bob Chambers - Harry Kelly - A popular win - A dark horse in light blue - Sport at Horsleydown - Something like  an umpire - Living to fight another day.

CHAPTER XXVII -  1861 (continued) - MOSTLY ECCLESIASTICAL - Religious life - Methodists - St. Alphege's - Reverend W. A. Soames - St. Mary's - A didactic preacher - Mothers' meetings - Tea-urns - A priestly uncle - Our Lady's, Croom's Hill - A Brazilian broad road to heaven - Maid of the Mist - Big Ben again - Death of the Prince Consort - Hartley colliery - Sale of honours.

CHAPTER XXVIII - 1861 (continued) -  FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES - PERILOUS MOMENTS - American Civil War - Nashville at Southampton -Trent affair - Commodore Wilkes - Great Eastern for Canada - Army Medical Board - Record railway run - War pictures - Monitor - Ericsson - Blockade runners - Midhat Pasha - Fredericksburg.

CHAPTER XXIX - 1861 (continued) VANISHED INDUSTRIES - Locomotive building in London - Shipbuilding in London - Last days of-Blackwall (Germany) - Greenwich again - Trinity House Almshouse - Old Woolwich Road - Park - Blackheath - Circus - Dick Turpin - Panoramas - Monte Video - Magic-lanterns - Modern "penny dreadfuls" - Scarlet fever - Saffron and tamarinds - "Walk on Jenkins."

CHAPTER XXX - 1861 (continued) - THE FIRST LONDON RAILWAY - Greenwich Railway - First London terminus - Boulevard - Prince of Orange - "Kiss me, Hardy" - Captain Marryat - George Stephenson - Leased by S.E.R.- Enormous holiday traffic - Early poems and prognostications - And results - Enter the gorilla.

CHAPTER XXXI - 1862-3 - GREAT EXHIBITION - PRINCESS ALEXANDRA - 1862 - Exhibition - Disappointing buildings - Mr. Gladstone defeated - Splendid exhibits - Locomotives - Ships - Colonies - Aniline Dyes - Armstrong and Krupp guns - Candlesticks - Koh-i-noor - Strand Theatre - Lady of Lyons - 1863 - Prince of Wales's marriage - Woolwich - Illuminations - London Bridge unapproachable - Successful manoeuvre.

CHAPTER XXXII -  1863 - THE FIRST UNDERGROUND - Metropolitan Railway - Sir John Fowler - Forth Bridge - Special engines for underground - Broad-gauge - First gas-lit carriages - Great Western Railway - Edinburgh Exhibition, 1890 - Supine Museum authorities - M.R. quarrels with G.W.R. - Great Northern called in - Boiler explosion at Bishop's Road - Metropolitan work their own line - R. H. Burnett.

CHAPTER XXXIII -  1863 (continued) - TRAGEDY, PATHOS AND FARCE - Ionian Isles cession - Donnybrookopolis - Everything declines except taxes - Pathos in Houndsditch - Steam fire-engines competition - Manhattan defeated - Baked potato-can - American leveller in the Philippines - Moonshine blindness - Catastrophe at Santiago - Cardinal Manning's exorcism - Accident at New Cross - Sources of the Nile - Mr. Banting - William Crookes and thallium.

CHAPTER XXXIV - 1864 - MURDER ON SEA AND RAILROAD - Flowery Land pirates - Calcraft - A gibbet for five - Public execution - North London Railway murder - Mr. Briggs - Muller - Chase to New York - Detectives' triumph - Trial and execution - King of Prussia intervenes - Kreuz Zeitung - Abolition of public executions - Danish War-Naval battle off Jutland - First German flag in Persian Gulf.

CHAPTER XXXV -  1864 (continued) - THE HERO OF ITALY - Garibaldi - Barclay Perkins - Kisses - Red blouses - Austrian double-faced eagle - For France in 1870 - Old Garibaldians in Mesopotamia and Inverness - Foolish protest by Common Council - Last of the Fleet prison - Penny parcel-post - Sinking of Alabama - Gallant fight - Belvedere explosion.

CHAPTER XXXVI - 1865 - JUSTICE OFF HER BALANCE - FIRST LONDON TUBES - Wreck of San Jacinto  - Saffron Hill murder - Pneumatic tubes - Electrical Parcel Exchange -Thames Tunnel - Thames subways - Serpentine bridge statuary - Cobden and Bright - Paxton - President Lincoln's assassination - Desolate cotton-fields.

CHAPTER XXXVII - 1865 (continued) - EXCURSIONS AND ALARUMS - Jersey- P.s. Normandy - Harvey monument - Sark - French p.s. Comete - Langham Hotel - Dr. Pritchard - Fun in Rotten Row - Chignons - Cheap Sunday excursions - Boulogne-sur-Mer - A venturesome Cornishman - Science Museum - Spain v. Chili - First bombs - Rabies, Cholera and Fenianism - Jamaican insurrection - Governor Eyre - Samphire collision - "Free" Trade.

CHAPTER XXXVIII - 1866 - KING NEPTUNE FETTERED AT LAST - S.s. London - Sentence of death on 200 - Amateur casual - Captain Coles - Cigar-ship - Overend and Gurney - Atlantic cables - Great Eastern finds her mission - Complete success - Array of British talent - Post Office red tape - King Neptune and the cables.

CHAPTER XXXIX - 1866 (continued) - PLAGUES OF SORTS - PENAL PUNISHMENTS - London's last choler - Quarantined - Cat-o'-nine-tails - Treadmill - The main point - First public ball - Nellie Power - The old, old story - After-years - Leicester Square - George II in charge - Baron Grant - Meteors - Hyde Park railings - Crystal Palace fire - Mr. Gladstone.

CHAPTER XL - 1867 - STRIKES AND REVOLUTIONS - PARIS UNDER THE EMPIRE - GUNPOWDER TREASON - Martyrdom of Governor Eyre - A disloyal Government - Strikes on the Brighton and North-Eastern Railways -Woburn Square ghost -  Emperor Maximilian - The Tomahawk and Napoleon III - Empress Charlotte - First visit to Paris - A fascinating chamber-maid - Parisian showmen - P.s. La Parisienne - Czar - King of Prussia - Bismarck - Luxembourg dispute - Fetes de l'Empereur - Hard on the English - Arc de Triomphe - Grand Exhibition - Clerkenwell Prison explosion - Gunpowder treason - Last public execution - Special constables - Glasgow explosions - German raids - H.M. Theatre fire - A scrimmage - Faraday - Alison - Holborn Viaduct - Tichborne case.

CHAPTER XLI - 1868 - BY LAND AND SEA - Royal College of Surgeons - Fenian shoots Duke of Edinburgh - Greenwich Hospital scandal - Victory and Bucentaur - Theseus - Abyssinian War - An earnest wooer - Napier of Magdala - Governor Eyre acquitted - Admiral de Horsey - Shah and Huascar - Tea clippers-Emigrant ship - Auxiliary screw steamer - East and West India Docks - Ratclifle Highway - Swedish Church - Wapping Old Stairs - Mahogany Bar - Landseer's lions.

CHAPTER XLII -  1869 - A STORMY VOLUNTEER REVIEW - New Law Courts - Volunteer Review - Storm at Dover - Wreck of H.M.S. Ferret - Captain H. M. Carré - After many years - Whisky.

CHAPTER XLIII -  THE DRAMA - EARLY RECOLLECTIONS - BURLESQUES - Miss Woolgar - Potter's Knot - J. L. Toole - Paul Bedford - Phelps - Louis XI - Miss Marriott - Fechter - Miss Bateman - Sothern - Buckstone - Adelina Patti - Mme Tietjens - Santley - Burnand - James and Thorne - Elise Holt - H. J. Byron - W. Brough - Black-eyed Susan - Alice Burville  -W. S. Gilbert - Burlesques.

CHAPTER XLIV - THE DRAMA (continued) - FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS - UNITY CLUB - New Standard Theatre - Queen's Theatre - Irving - First telephone in England - Dynamite demonstration - Labouchere - Gaiety Theatre - Nellie Farren - Adah Isaacs Menken - Mazeppa - T. W. Robertson - Marie Wilton - Grande Duchesse - Mrs. Howard Paul - Can-can - Miss Furtado - Unity Club - G. R. Sims - Theatrical hours and customs - Music-halls - The chairman -Weston's - Unrehearsed turn - Poses Plastique - Judge and jury - Florentine Venus - Benefits.

CHAPTER XLV - SPORT - Leonidas to Tom Sayers - Mills's Field - Cricket - Football - Racing - Caractacus - Bribery Colt - Running - Deerfoot - Rowing - Boxing - Baden-Powell - Archery.

CHAPTER XLVI -  CONCLUSION - Education - Curtailed liberty - Englishmen abroad - Workers v. Shirkers - Old-time wisdom - Quo vadimus?